10 – X, No not my shirt size. After all, I am a svelte studdly little over 200 lb hunk of a man. No, the 10X is a reference to the center bullseye. The X count is the tie breaker, the number of more centered 10 ring scores.
Now, what the hell does this mean? Three years ago when I was sick and weak, I reflected on things I hadn’t done or should have done. AKA the bucket list.
One of those items was competitive shooting. Back in my Marine Corp days I was a pretty good shooter. I actually won several Marine Corps Reserve championships, both as an individual or a team shooter. But then the unit I transferred to didn’t field a team so I stopped shooting.
Fast forward to two years ago, I was on the mend and I decided to start shooting again. WOW! I was appalled at how bad my pistol shooting had fallen to. The first match I shot I was definitely in the marksman class, two levels below where I used to be.
As I continued shooting more matches, the scores came up and with the first reclassification came around I was back in the Expert class. Currently I am shooting scores right on the Master class cut off point.
Last month I shot the Texas state outdoor matches and did pretty darn good won two of the 16 individual matches and placed 2nd or 3rd in another 9.
This week I head to Ohio to shoot the national pistol championship matches, how good I do is going to be a factor of how well I can stay on target. If the competition doesn’t get me rattled I think I can finish in the top 10%. I will be shooting in the expert class but I have, and know, I can shoot Master class scores.
The question is, will I? 1199 miles 17 hours is the goggled maps prediction. I head out tomorrow about noon and hope to be there Sunday by noon. Regardless, I will have shot the National Pistol Championship matches and that’s a check mark. so the matches end a Sunday the 12th, I guess I will fess up to how I did after that.
dum vita est spes est
